Pick Up the Pieces
Excursions in Seventies Music
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
Intro
1970
The Kinks, “Lola”
Edwin Starr, “War”
James Brown, “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine”
Black Sabbath, Paranoid
Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, Lick My Decals Off, Baby
The Stooges, Fun House
The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Les Stances à Sophie
1971
Joni Mitchell, Blue
Michael Hurley & Pals, Armchair Boogie
Harry Nilsson, Nilsson Schmilsson
Webster Lewis and the Post-Pop Space-Rock Be-Bop Gospel Tabernacle Chorus and Orchestra BABY!, Live at Club 7; Curtis Mayfield, “Move On Up”
Genesis, Nursery Cryme
Derek Bailey, Solo Guitar
The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers
1972
Lou Reed, Transformer
Alice Cooper, “School’s Out”
Yes, Close to the Edge
The Edgar Winter Group, “Frankenstein”; Focus, “Hocus Pocus”
The O’Jays, Back Stabbers
Julius Hemphill, Dogon A.D.
Nick Drake, Pink Moon
Carla Bley, Paul Haines, Escalator Over the Hill; Todd Rundgren, Something/Anything?
1973
Sun Ra, Space Is the Place
Al Green, Call Me; Marvin Gaye, Let’s Get It On
Stevie Wonder, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”
Gal Costa, Índia
Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy
Sly and the Family Stone, Fresh
1974
Gram Parsons, Grievous Angels
Average White Band, “Pick Up the Pieces”
William DeVaughn, “Be Thankful for What You’ve Got”
The Residents, Meet the Residents
Brian Eno, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy); Dr. Alimantado, “Best Dressed Chicken in Town”
Kraftwerk, Autobahn
Van Morrison, Veedon Fleece; John Cale, Paris 1919
Robert Wyatt, Rock Bottom
Neil Young, On the Beach
Queen, Sheer Heart Attack; Sparks, Kimono My House
1975
Parliament, Mothership Connection
Van McCoy, “The Hustle”
Elton John, “Philadelphia Freedom”
Kiss, Alive!; Electric Light Orchestra, Face the Music
Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run
Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
Patti Smith, Horses
1976
Boston, “Long Time”
Aerosmith, Rocks
Bootsy Collins, Stretchin’ Out in Bootsy’s Rubber Band
Fela and Afrika 70, Zombie
1977
Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blank Generation; Television, Marquee Moon
Milford Graves, Bäbi
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
Ted Nugent, Cat Scratch Fever
The Clash, The Clash
David Bowie, Low
Suicide, Suicide
Joe McPhee, Tenor
Heart, Little Queen
Pink Floyd, Animals
1978
Van Halen, Van Halen
Elvis Costello, This Year’s Model
James Blood Ulmer, Tales of Captain Black
Just What I Needed: A Transatlantic Art-Pop Comedy in Five Acts
1979
Forty-One 45s
The Fall, Dragnet
Ramones, “Rock ’n’ Roll High School”
Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Do It Yourself
The Police, Reggatta de Blanc; The Pretenders, Pretenders
Sugarhill Gang, “Rapper’s Delight”
The Pop Group, Y; The Slits, Cut
The Raincoats, “Lola”
1980
Grace Jones, Warm Leatherette
1970
The Kinks, “Lola”
Edwin Starr, “War”
James Brown, “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine”
Black Sabbath, Paranoid
Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, Lick My Decals Off, Baby
The Stooges, Fun House
The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Les Stances à Sophie
1971
Joni Mitchell, Blue
Michael Hurley & Pals, Armchair Boogie
Harry Nilsson, Nilsson Schmilsson
Webster Lewis and the Post-Pop Space-Rock Be-Bop Gospel Tabernacle Chorus and Orchestra BABY!, Live at Club 7; Curtis Mayfield, “Move On Up”
Genesis, Nursery Cryme
Derek Bailey, Solo Guitar
The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers
1972
Lou Reed, Transformer
Alice Cooper, “School’s Out”
Yes, Close to the Edge
The Edgar Winter Group, “Frankenstein”; Focus, “Hocus Pocus”
The O’Jays, Back Stabbers
Julius Hemphill, Dogon A.D.
Nick Drake, Pink Moon
Carla Bley, Paul Haines, Escalator Over the Hill; Todd Rundgren, Something/Anything?
1973
Sun Ra, Space Is the Place
Al Green, Call Me; Marvin Gaye, Let’s Get It On
Stevie Wonder, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”
Gal Costa, Índia
Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy
Sly and the Family Stone, Fresh
1974
Gram Parsons, Grievous Angels
Average White Band, “Pick Up the Pieces”
William DeVaughn, “Be Thankful for What You’ve Got”
The Residents, Meet the Residents
Brian Eno, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy); Dr. Alimantado, “Best Dressed Chicken in Town”
Kraftwerk, Autobahn
Van Morrison, Veedon Fleece; John Cale, Paris 1919
Robert Wyatt, Rock Bottom
Neil Young, On the Beach
Queen, Sheer Heart Attack; Sparks, Kimono My House
1975
Parliament, Mothership Connection
Van McCoy, “The Hustle”
Elton John, “Philadelphia Freedom”
Kiss, Alive!; Electric Light Orchestra, Face the Music
Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run
Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
Patti Smith, Horses
1976
Boston, “Long Time”
Aerosmith, Rocks
Bootsy Collins, Stretchin’ Out in Bootsy’s Rubber Band
Fela and Afrika 70, Zombie
1977
Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blank Generation; Television, Marquee Moon
Milford Graves, Bäbi
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
Ted Nugent, Cat Scratch Fever
The Clash, The Clash
David Bowie, Low
Suicide, Suicide
Joe McPhee, Tenor
Heart, Little Queen
Pink Floyd, Animals
1978
Van Halen, Van Halen
Elvis Costello, This Year’s Model
James Blood Ulmer, Tales of Captain Black
Just What I Needed: A Transatlantic Art-Pop Comedy in Five Acts
Cheap Trick, Heaven Tonight; The Cars, The Cars
Wire, Chairs Missing
No New York; Talking Heads, More Songs about Buildings and Food
XTC, Go 2
Devo, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!; Pere Ubu, The Modern Dance; MX80 Sound, Hard Attack
Wire, Chairs Missing
No New York; Talking Heads, More Songs about Buildings and Food
XTC, Go 2
Devo, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!; Pere Ubu, The Modern Dance; MX80 Sound, Hard Attack
1979
Forty-One 45s
The Fall, Dragnet
Ramones, “Rock ’n’ Roll High School”
Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Do It Yourself
The Police, Reggatta de Blanc; The Pretenders, Pretenders
Sugarhill Gang, “Rapper’s Delight”
The Pop Group, Y; The Slits, Cut
The Raincoats, “Lola”
1980
Grace Jones, Warm Leatherette
Index
Review Quotes
Booklist
"[A] thoroughly enjoyable—and gorgeously written—joy ride down his version of 1970s memory lane. . . . music lovers are sure to enjoy Corbett’s delightful book about a fascinating, often misunderstood time of musical innovation."
Library Journal
"Just as a rich gumbo benefits from the perfect combination of diverse ingredients, so does Corbett’s analysis and so do the 1970s songs and performances he examines. . . . Corbett is in the upper echelon of music criticism."
Rainn Wilson
“Corbett is the Carl Sagan of vinyl. Funny and irreverent, he’s voyaged across the stars and the human imagination to bring us music both ‘pathetic and sublime’ from that most misunderstood of decades, the 1970s.”
Spectrum Culture
"Pick Up the Pieces challenges us to attempt an understanding of an era’s crazy contradictions and to do so through putting on an album, preferably with friends, and letting its sounds tangle around us as we live. If only we could all describe our experiences—with music and with everything else—as perceptively as Corbett does."
PopMatters
"Rich in insight into the music industry. . . . Corbett reminds us that the music of the '70s is not a collection of half-forgotten songs left drifting in the past. Rather, that music is an integral part of who he is, as the music we grow up with often becomes the music we grow old with as well."
Neneh Cherry, singer
“This book is a gift and a joy! My own life story comprised a tapestry of tracks that felt just like this, a mind-map of music. Corbett’s journey through the universe of each song is detailed, deep, and soulful.”
Lars Iyer, philosopher and author of Wittgenstein Jr. and the trilogy Spurious, Dogma, and Exodus.
“This is a love cry. A cornucopia of zappy chapters, dedicated to the question as to what ‘70s music means. Deliciously nonpartisan, curious, open-eared, Corbett honors cross-pollinating musical fusions in a fleet, polymorphous prose that wears great knowledge lightly. There are bits of memoir here—but no dull autobiographical trudge. There are famous names—but deep obscurants, too. Above all: no yawnsome retreads of ye olde rock lore. It helps that Corbett’s right about everything. Pick Up the Pieces is another gem in a maverick diadem.”
Arto Lindsay, former guitarist for DNA
“They say that real edge never grows old. Steering back and forth between sexual and musical first times—best times!—Corbett does justice to all sorts of intensity.”
Gregg Bordowitz, artist and author of Tenement and Volition
“‘Time takes a cigarette and puts it in your mouth’—Bowie croons, addressing a weary soul at the start of ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide.’ The singer/prophet/alien holds out a hand to pick YOU up. Listen! Exalt! And like a fellow space commuter, Corbett clocks the tunes and throws out lines to the untethered. Dear reader, forget your age. The ‘seventies’ is an abstract pattern. Doesn’t matter if you were an adult, a teenager, a tot, or not yet conceived in that decade, turn-on with Corbett in this one.”
Donald Brackett | Critics at Large
"Appropriately, in the aptly titled Pick Up the Pieces, some 85 separate albums and groups are part of the author’s own personal excursions, all surging forward at breakneck speed attempting to creatively reflect the times in which they lived and worked, all looking for what rare magic, if any, could come next after the decline and fall of an admittedly unique band and the equally dreamy decade before them. Where to now? That is the schematic blueprint for Corbett’s captivating and highly personal musical map. And it works beautifully."
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